Far from the hurrying world, this former coaching Iinn stands amid Wordsworth’s northern Lakes.

In March 2018, the then owners sold what was then Bridge House to Silvana Bandini and Chris Staines, she a former general manager at The Pig near Bath, he one-time executive chef at the Abbey Hotel, Bath.

Standing right on the quay overlooking estuary and salt marshes, in a coastal village of flint cottages, gift shops and galleries, Emma Stannard’s hotel is ideal for outdoorsy family holidays.

In ‘lovely Cotswold stone buildings around a pretty courtyard’, this mostly 16th-century former coaching inn has had a stylish make-over.

In the heart of Constable country, Wendy and Jim Sarton’s ancient manor house is a hotspot for painting courses.

'In its glory, in the very beautiful Otter valley', this Elizabethan manor house is the fifth member of Robin Hutson’s Pig family.

‘An amazingly gorgeous hotel,’ writes a reader this year, of Tracy and Galton Blackiston’s restaurant-with-rooms, ‘ideally located’ for a seal trip to Blakeney Point.

You might find Cornish lamb on the menu at Rick and Jill Stein’s flagship venture in a harbour town on the Camel estuary, but it is for fish and shellfish that fans have come here since Stein transformed a dodgy nightclub into a basic hotel in 1975.

‘One for traditionalists,’ write trusted Guide readers, of this child-friendly, dog-friendly Jacobean ancestral home in Thomas Hardy country, run by owners Richard and Brian Prideaux-Brune, with Richard’s wife, Alison.

‘More home than hotel’, the Macdonalds’ ‘fabulous’ Victorian country house brims with family history and aristocratic fixtures.

On the Wild Atlantic Way, with views across the ‘dramatic’ Burren Hills to Galway Bay, ‘delightful’ Gregans Castle is ‘the epitome of understated country-house hotel luxury,’ writes a Guide regular this year.

‘Remains a flagship in its idiom,’ writes a trusted reader, of this legendary enterprise, centred on a wisteria-draped Georgian house grafted on to the remains of a Norman castle.

‘The enthusiastic welcome immediately made us feel at home again.’

‘This is not just a good hotel but a very good hotel.’ High praise this year from a trusted reader, for every aspect of the hospitality at Lord and Lady Macdonald’s historic former hunting lodge on the Isle of Skye.

Approached by a private road, this ‘large, rambling but wonderful’ late Georgian mansion, in ‘magnificent grounds’, is owned and cherished by Susannah and Stuart Macpherson.

‘A wonderful place,’ write readers this year, of Andrew Wildsmith’s first venture, between Lake District and Yorkshire Dales.

‘Old-fashioned in style and lovely for it.’ Returning guests this year were pleased to discover that Peter Wharton’s ‘splendid’ hotel overlooking Lyme Bay ‘sails gracefully on, without feeling the need to change things for the sake of change’.

Grey seals loll the day away along an old ferry slipway on the shores of ‘wild, beautiful’ Loch Glendhu – the ‘superb setting’ for ‘hands-on, energetic’ Tanja Lister and Sonia Virechauveix’s ‘most enjoyable’ small hotel.

‘Tranquil air of relaxed calm’, ‘Good for the soul’, ‘An oasis of peace’. We hear perennial praise for John Edward Joyce’s country house hotel.

Cumbrian comforts abound at this ‘well-kept’ Edwardian country house hotel, in three-acre grounds in a ‘beautiful setting’ in the Borrowdale valley.

Breakfast is served at a carved oak refectory table by the Great Hall’s massive log fire at Ann and Ian Dyer’s B&B in a manor house with private chapel.

A Victorian baroque showstopper, this manor house stands on a steep hill in gardens above the Fowey estuary. It is part of the Luxury Family Hotels group.

‘We felt comfortable and well fed,’ report readers, following a stay at this remote restaurant-with-rooms overlooking Loch Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye.

Mellow sandstone battlements, turrets and towers are revealed only at the final turn of the ‘lengthy’ drive through the ‘vibrant, meticulously tended’ grounds of Paul and Poppy Szkiler’s 19th-century baronial pile.